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hey what's up this is Leo for actualised org and I am here in Zion National Park in Utah and today as I'm up here on our path towards angels landing just up behind the mountains I thought I would talk about life purpose and what life purpose is and really ask you the question and that is what is your life purpose what is your purpose in life and by that I mean what kind of impact do you want to have what is your life about are you just living your life going about the day-to-day the nine-to-five like most people do or do you have something that's driving you to that's deeper some sort of principles that you're living by something that you want to accomplish some sort of impact that you want to have with your life and being driven by that now it's interesting that life purpose I always intuitively understood that it was something that was very important to figure out because if you don't have a life purpose then nothing is grounding you in what you're doing and you're like a leaf in the wind you're just blowing around you don't have any anything there that is connecting your job to your deepest values you don't have anything there that's connecting everything that you're doing in your life your deepest values and so first of all I think it's difficult to be fulfilled when you don't have a purpose second of all I think you'll just have this sense of loss and you'll have this sense of just blowing around in the wind as it were and not being able to accomplish the kind of great success that you might want whether its financial or whether it's a certain prestige you want to have certain reputation you want to have whether it's within your relationships whatever and the life purpose is very deep and personal thing for everybody it's going to be something different the question is do you know what yours is and I spent a lot of my own time figuring out what my purpose is for me and that has taken taken its time it's not something which I like originally the way that I thought it would be is that I would just either have a purpose to begin with as I was growing up or I would pick a purpose and then set myself on that track and then just there it is you know one sentence purpose do x2 dua whatever what what actually happens I think is purpose life purpose is a much deeper topic and nobody really tells you about this but David data in his book way the superior man has a really good discussion about life purpose and about the way that it works it's it's more like an onion with a bunch of layers to it so it's not just this simple one-sentence definition of what it is that you're doing with your life it's more like you are the onion and you've got all these layers to you and so you start with the outer layer and the outer layer is is just like your your basic intuitions as to what you want to be doing with your life and by purpose I mean and by what you're doing with your life mostly related to your career because you're spending eight hours a day 40 hours a week probably if not more than that on your career so you want that to be something that is is important to you something that that is deeply fulfilling for you because if you're not doing that think about it eight hours a day forty hours a week that's like a third of your life spent on your job so if and then the rest and then another thirty your life just is spent sleeping so third of its spent sleeping a third of it is spent working and then another third of it is spent doing other miscellaneous things you want that third that you spend working to be something that's fulfilling for you and so what David data's talks about is that you're like an onion and you've got that outer layer that you start with and that outer layer is just your basic intuition as to what you want to be doing and then what happens is you go and you pursue that thing you try it out you're feeling around when you're new at this you don't really know what you should be doing so you're feeling around maybe you like this thing or you don't like that thing you get little hints here and there and then you peel that layer back as it were you peel it back and then you reach another deeper layer inside and then you work on that for a while you work on that and you think that that's the thing that you're really after and then you start to see that it starts to peel away as well and there's something deeper there and so you go even deeper and then you get to another layer and you peel that away and so this process really is the dynamic process the dynamic way to think about life purpose it's not just a static thing it's a dynamic thing and it's something that keeps evolving over the course of your life so maybe you're the kind of person right now that has no idea what they want to be doing with their life maybe just have kind of a dead-end job that you just doing just to earn money that means you got to start with that the outermost layer and start working on that and working your way inwards and that outer layer is the first one you got to start with and it might take you a year just to figure out the first layer but maybe you're already pretty deep into it and maybe you already feel like you have a pretty pretty decent career you went to school you know that what you're doing is something that that is resonating with you but still there's more right that means you've penetrated maybe past that first surface but then there's there's still more in there and what is more mean there well what is it that you really want to bring forward and share with the world what kind of impact do you want to have through your job so maybe you're already happy you know you already have a decent job maybe you're an engineer or you're an artist you're a graphics designer or whatever it is that you're doing maybe you know that that's the line of work that you want to be working in but maybe now the next step for you is going off on your own and maybe doing your own thing because what you're doing at your job right now you feel like it's not letting you express yourself fully it's not letting you share your full potential and it's not letting you have the kind of impact that you really want to have at your job maybe that means going and finding another job that's that's along the same lines so let's say if you're a web designer maybe you're still going to be a web designer but now you're going to go to a different company because that company is more in line with the values that you have maybe they're working on websites the kind of websites that you're more interested in that you feel are are necessary and important for the world to to experience and to see and to interact with so maybe it's like that or maybe you feel like you've been a web designer and that's you've been that way for a few years you've been working at it and now you feel like it's totally not your gig anymore and you found it you found out an important lesson here that even though Web Design is not your purpose now you've kind of peeled back that first layer and now you're going deeper and it's like okay my purpose is something something else so I like maybe I like art and I like and I like programming maybe I can mix those somehow in some other way somewhat original way maybe I should go in and do something that's like an offshoot of web development so maybe it's like that and you just keep drilling deeper and deeper and deeper until you get to some sort of core and I don't know if this core is ever gotten to it might be just kind of an idea that you're trying to strive for but ultimately what you're trying to do is you're trying to dig deeper and try to get to the core of of yourself really if who you are figuring out what your values are and the kind of expression you want to have so you're a hundred percent authentically expressing yourself through your work and how do you want that to be because this is a choice for you there's so many different ways regardless of the kind of values that you have there's so many different ways that you can actually go out there and manifest them in the real world right there's so many different careers that will line up with the kind of impact that you want to have in the world or maybe you have a very specific objective maybe you want to have a specific influence on on different people in society maybe you want to have a specific influence on maybe on kids or maybe on seniors or maybe on people that have suffered through the same kind of problems that you've suffered through and so that is your purpose and now you got to start figuring out how do I get my life aligned with that purpose and that's the trick right because not only does it take sometimes years to figure out what your purpose is then it takes a lot of courage and actual action to get your life aligned with it I'll give you an example when I started off I always thought that my purpose since I was kid was to be a video game designer and that's something that I've pursued very vigorously and eventually I got up after college I finished college I got hired by a pretty nice game design studio up in Boston and I I moved all the way from California to Boston and I started working there and I thought that that was going to be my dream job and that was gonna be fulfilling my purpose and then when I realized when I was at Boston about a year later I realized that there was there was aspects of me that were not coming out there at that job even though I loved designing video games there were just certain aspects that I feel were being repressed and I couldn't be completely expressive for example I felt like I needed autonomy in how the overall big picture of the design of the game was coming along I didn't have much say in that so I felt like that was something that I couldn't bite my tongue and and carry on with that that's something I had to do something about so what I ended up doing is through much consternation I ended up having to start my own business and it wasn't even a game development it was internet marketing business so that I could fund so I could build the capital that I needed in order to then start my own game business and so I went through a year-long process of starting a business and then running my internet marketing business for about three or four years I still have it but I don't take an active role in it anymore and so the idea there was that I had to really take a lot of Kurt it took a lot of courage to leave a job that was a really nice position that had a lot of room for growth in it and then I would get a lot of experience from but leaving it because I knew that it somehow wasn't aligned with who I really was and so it took me really three years to kind of to go start a new business get involved in all this stuff take all this action just to bring my life into some sort of alignment but counter totally what I figured out was that it brought me out of alignment because internet marketing was not something I wanted to do in fact it was something that I hated doing and that I wanted to get myself out of I was just using it as a means to build capital and so in that case what I have to do is I had to reconnect with my purpose had to find what my purpose was going to be and I didn't know at that time what it was going to be I had ideas you know there are things that I kind of gravitate towards but how to actually make that into something that's valuable to other people how to make it into something that actually produces money for yourself so you can support yourself with it and how to make it such that you can express yourself in that position that you're in so that you're not beholden to some sort of other company or sometimes a client or some sort of special interest that's going to undermine the creative vision that you have the kind of impact that you want to have well that's tricky you know that takes a lot of work and designing your life around that is is definitely challenging it's something that takes years of effort to do and it's like a long-term goal that you can set for yourself but I think it's really important to do that because what else would you do with your life I mean if you're not pursuing a purpose if you don't have some sort of concrete objective in mind as to the kind of impact that you want to have with everything that you're doing in your life specifically your work then you're just going to be floundering and you're going to be going here to there you're going to maybe be motivated by a bigger paycheck maybe going to be motivated by better benefits maybe you're going to be motivated by a nicer company that has better reputation and so you're going to be doing that and doing this back and forth but you're not going to be really expressing who you are and if you're lucky enough to have the kind of job where you're doing that and you're totally passionate about it and you love it then I think that's great and you should be really grateful and thankful that you have that because most people I think don't and because I think most people don't take the time to plan this thing out long term and to do the introspection that's necessary over a course of months and years to build a life purpose and to design their life around it I think because of that a lot of people are lost and a lot of people are living mediocre lives quite simply because it's hard to have a massive impact on others without being very dedicated to it without putting that intention into it it's hard to do that accidentally right and I think if you look at all the great visionaries out there that have started amazing companies and have done amazing things amazing politicians and businessmen and political leaders and anybody like that in society you know they knew what they wanted either the lives and they pursued it with with like with determination with total determination because if you're not doing that then you're just kind of like living your life day to day and that tends to lead to a mediocre kind of life so the point of this video is to to really get you to understand and to see that life purpose is it's a dynamic shifting evolving thing and even right now even like as my purpose right now is is to coach other people to counsel the people on personal development issues to become really well-versed in personal development and to apply it to my own life so that I can help others apply it in their lives that's my purpose at this point but that's something that's evolving for me as well like that's pretty abstract in generic there's so many different ways that can flesh out you know should I do that through more coaching or should I do that through through a through my website or should I do that through public speaking or should I do that through running seminars like or writing books there's so many different ways that it can be done and all the time I'm still thinking about my purpose I'm still peeling those layers back I feel I felt like I've peeled the outermost layers that onion I'm getting a little bit deeper and so it's nice to start to feel it out after about like God four years and now I'm starting to peel like those inner layers and that's really exciting and empowering start peeling those inner layers and understanding that on some level there's a core to you that is just you your deepest values and things that you really want out of life the things that excite you they get you creative your creative juices flowing so there's that and that might be an eighth on some level but then there's also what you want to create and that's something very conscious right so there's there's any I can take my life from this point on to wherever I want it to go any way I want and so now it's really a question of where do I want to take it and now it's about asking myself well what-what would I like to do more what I like to do more writing what I like to do more public speaking what I like to do more videos you know what I like to be traveling the world what is it and started starting to to feel that out because you can't really tell ahead of time what's going to resonate with you what you're going to like what you're not going to like you can have certain intuitions and certain guesses but a lot of times what I found is that I have to go into something and actually do it for a while until I really start to like to develop a love for it or maybe I'll figure out that it's not something that I loved after all and so I'll have to I'll have to shift and do course corrections dynamically so to speak right so this stuff is not something that you can just plan out you can't just sit down and plan it all out for yourself and set it in stones is something that's going to shift and evolve for you over time and best way to start to work on your purpose is to start asking yourself questions questions like what would you be doing if you had all the money in the world and money was not a motivating force for you anymore what would you be doing with your time what kind of impact do you want to have on the world well you know what kind of legacy do you want to leave behind after you're dead what do you want people to remember you for and and what do you feel most proud of what kind of accomplishments in your life do you feel most proud of because chances are those accomplishments that you feel very of already are giving you little senses of what would really make you very fulfilled if you did it full-time at a very very high level and you just like gave yourself completely to that process of creating creating value creating value for people because I think inherently if you think that your life is all about you you you and what you can get and about you know how much money you get or what kind of car you can have a kin a house you can have how much travel you can do that's that's going to be limiting there's going to be a limit to how much fulfillment you can get from that you're going to get a little bit of titillation here and there but ultimately that's going to let's go sir if you feel empty you're going to start to want to contribute you're going to start to want to influence other people and the question is how do you want to do that and there's probably already different ways in your life that you've done that and you felt good about it but you just haven't really forged a career out of it and you haven't set that deliberate conscious intention to make it your purpose and to be something that you're going to pursue so that you're the master over a course of years and decades and so that's what I want you to start thinking about working with the life coach is a really good way to start to get your head around life purpose if you don't know what your purpose is at all that's a good way or place to start and if you already do know your purpose but you feel like you're not living up to your full potential well then that's also a good place to start because then we can kind of pick you up and take you from where you are right now and take you to to your dream career to your to that path that's going to leave you completely fulfilled and that's something that I personally love to do that's why I really got into coaching myself because I struggled through this issue myself personally for years and I've kind of been feeling my way out through all the different angles all the different problems and and solutions and techniques that are out there to develop your life purpose I felt like I've worked on it myself and also read a lot of information literature about it from from other people who have tried to figure out this this thorny issue but for now I'm going to leave you on this last thought what would you be doing if you had all the money in the world and money was no longer a motivating force for you all what would you be doing with your life and I don't mean partying or decorating your house or buy a new car because you can do all those things but on top of that because your life is pretty long you still got a good ways to go a third of its going to be spent doing some sort of work even if you had all the money you still would not want to party 24/7 you'd want to spend a certain chunk of your time doing something fulfilling for other people question is what would that be one more point that I wanted to make about life purpose is that there's this tendency I think to assume that people are born with one or people are I understand what their purpose should be in life and that's very deceptive to think that way because if you think that people naturally have a purpose what's going to happen is that you're going to assume that you should have one as well and that's not true at all I think purposively that has to be built over time if you don't have a purpose right now then I'm going to make a suggestion for you make your purpose to find your purpose that's where it all starts start with wanting to find your purpose like it's something that's deeply important to you personally for me that has always been at play since I was like 6 years old I always knew that I needed a purpose I needed a purpose in life I needed to channel my energy towards some sort of means you know towards some sort of goal and if I wasn't doing that I felt like I wasn't living optimally and I wasn't living to my full potential and so I went on really a quest to find what my purpose is going to be and I went through a lot you know I've done my career so far which has been pretty short has not really has actually covered a lot of territory so I went from in college aerospace engineer to philosophy major to then video game designer to web designer to SEO internet marketing then to mobile games developer than to now life coaching and and now I'm kind of taking life coaching and I'm even evolving into more of a self-help kind of expert guru type of a career track so you see how that like it evolves like there's so much ground that I had to cover there just to start to understand what I wanted and what would make me happy because I used to believe that I could just sit down that I would just one day I would just sit down and figure it out like I would just sit down and say to myself okay what already with my life and then I would just kind of like think about a little bit philosophize about it and it's like okay I want to do engineering and then I would just be an engineer and that would be it would be solved for the rest of my life didn't quite turn out that way what I found out is that in reality let your life purpose is so dynamic that you just have to work with it it's like a it's like a big lump of dough that you have to constantly need need and need a need a need and if you don't have a purpose right now set your purpose to be to find a purpose so that means whatever is that you're doing if you know that you're not happy doing it right now that's fine you know that's where you at that's where you're at and maybe you can't leave your job immediately that's not what I'm saying you might have to stick around just because of the financial situation you're in or whatever that's fine but start to think ahead start to think about what you want your purpose to be right if you weren't doing your job right now what would you be doing instead what would you rather be doing what would be the best possible position for you in any possible company in the world or maybe it would be starting your own business you know start thinking about that and maybe what you can start doing is start start reading start researching start exploring start testing testing out the field right testing out what it is that you want to go into so maybe you're doing one thing and you want to go into something totally different test out that totally different thing see if it's going to work for you because a lot of times what will happen is that you'll try it out you'll figure out you know that this is really not what you want and so then you have to go search for something else and something else but ultimately if your purpose is to find your purpose that is what's going to ground you at least for now that's going to ground you and you're going to use that to test out all these different niches that you could potentially fill until you find one that's going to be nice and comfy for you and it's going to make you fulfilled so for now if you don't have a purpose start by making your purpose to find a purpose that is your purpose right now you